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TORONTO -- The budget is finally balanced. Finance Minister Joe Oliver rose in the House Tuesday to table the 2015 Economic Action Plan and announce a projected surplus of $1.4 billion.

After the country was submerged in a massive stimulus spending deficit of $55 billion in 2009, Canada is finally back in the black. The surplus is predicted to steadily grow, reaching $4.8 billion in 2019.

There are few major surprises in the 528-page booklet - which is 101 pages longer than the 2014 edition.

As expected, income splitting is coming down the pipes and the tax free savings account limit is being doubled to $10,000 per year.

The amount seniors must withdraw annually from registered retirement income funds is going down, which lowers the tax they'll have to pay.

The small business tax rate will go down to 9% in 2019 instead of 11%.

All good things.

However in my last column I crossed my fingers hoping this would be less of a sales pitch and more of a straight up budget. No dice. It's clearly an election document as much as it's a budget.

The budget brief really wants to sell average Canadians on the idea that the Conservatives are the champions of the middle class, not Justin Trudeau and the Liberals:

"A typical two-earner family of four will receive tax relief and increased benefits of up to $6,600 in 2015, as a result of the family tax cut, the universal child care benefit, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate reduction, the introduction of new credits, such as the children's fitness tax Credit, and broad-based income tax relief including the reduction in the lowest personal income tax rate."

These are the kitchen table issues the politicians are going to duke it out over.

That said, there's really only one section in the massive budget that should be of interest to fiscal hawks. It's the summary statement of transactions - the actual chart that tells you how much money is coming in and how much money is going out.

And this chart tells us that the budget is moving in the right direction.

Federal debt is declining - from the current $617 billion down to $605.2 billion in five years.

Program expenses and budget revenues as a percentage of GDP remain relatively constant.

In 2013, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that one long-term economic plan is to bring the debt load down to only 25% of GDP by 2021. Right now we're sitting at 31%, but are projected to still hit the target.

The only numbers heading in the wrong direction are overall expenses, which are going up.

As Aaron Wudrick, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, told Postmedia Network, "If there's one big criticism of this budget it's that, despite their restraint, spending continues to creep up, to the tune of $48 billion over the next five years, which is well above inflation."

In 2019 program expenses will cost taxpayers $302.6 billion, up from $254.6 billion in 2014.

But ultimately this is a "steady as she goes" budget. There are no big surprises because the Conservatives know stability is their best virtue leading up to the election.

This blandness makes it hard for the Opposition to strike out at the government, aside from their general refrains about preferring money was spent elsewhere.

Trudeau has made it clear that he'd repeal income-splitting and the TFSA increase and spend the money in ways he thinks would better benefit people. That's a dangerous game. He's sending the message that he knows best how to spend other people's money.

The Conservatives fulfilled their basic promises: to balance the budget and bring in a few tax measures. Anything else Canadians were hoping for will be fought on the election battleground